Eberhardt Rechtin, who played a key role in the development of space technology during the Cold War, died Friday at Torrance Memorial Hospital after lengthy battles with several illnesses. He was 80.
Rechtin, of Rolling Hills Estates, was chief executive of El Segundo-based Aerospace Corp. for 10 years, chief engineer of Hewlett-Packard Corp. and director of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, among other positions that placed him at the forefront of U.S. national security. He later joined the faculty at USC, creating the school's first program in aerospace architecture.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday April 19, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 32 words Type of Material: Correction
Rechtin obituary: The obituary of Eberhardt Rechtin in Tuesday's California section said David Packard was secretary of Defense when he met Rechtin during their tenure at the Pentagon. Packard was deputy secretary.
"He felt his time in public service had been a privilege," said Albert Wheelon, a close friend for nearly five decades and a fellow aerospace industry leader. "There was never a careerist view of his work. He was a selfless person."
Rechtin's most important single technical accomplishment was his role in creating the Deep Space Network, a system developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory that captures communications from distant planetary spacecraft.
Although it may seem routine now to see photos from the surface of Mars on television, the network required the solution of huge technical problems in the 1960s. Not only were signals extraordinarily weak after traveling millions of miles through space, but they also had to be captured by a series of receiving stations as the Earth rotated. Ultimately, the network became a critical part of U.S. breakthroughs in planetary science.
"I was told by Nobel Prize winners that it would not be possible really to communicate to the edge of the solar system," Rechtin recalled in an oral history taken in 1995.
Rechtin also played a key role in the development of electronics systems for the nation's first space probe, Explorer, while at JPL, Wheelon said.
Rechtin grew up Orange, N.J., and moved to California with his family in 1941. He volunteered for a Navy program that sent him to study at Caltech during World War II.
He graduated in less than three years with an engineering degree and then received a PhD, also from Caltech, in 1950. Among his lecturers was Simon Ramo, who later helped establish the space operations of what is now Northrop Grumman Corp.
"I remember him as a bright young engineer," Ramo said. "He became a prominent person in the field."
